I'm not sure /classic is a reliable way to check for home page quality: the number of submissions per unit of time is much higher now, and the "raising" news, the ones you see flashing in the home page with the first few votes, are now affected by the new user base component.

In order to be reliable the subset of users at /classic should also see only new submissions by classic users, and should also see the home page itself as composed only of classic news and votes, otherwise they are affected by all the rest.